Oh my, is that a 35mm screening of Noboru Ando's Chronicle of Fugitive Days and Sex 安藤昇のわが逃亡とSEXの記録 (1976)? I'd be so down for that! A hilarious film that I consider one of the highlights of Tanaka's career.

Oh my, is that a 35mm screening of Noboru Ando's Chronicle of Fugitive Days and Sex 安藤昇のわが逃亡とSEXの記録 (1976)? I'd be so down for that! A hilarious film that I consider one of the highlights of Tanaka's career.

Yes, it is. And I'm gonna see it there. It also screened last year in Cinema Vera in Noboru Ando retrospective, but I had no chance to attend that.

My second visit to the Kazuhiko Yamaguchi retrospective was to see Oh Wonderful Utamaro (Shikojo Toruko Nikki) (1974).

The film is a mildly/moderately amusing Toei Porno comedy. Kelly is an American nymphomaniac who literally falls off from the sky with parachute. She's meant to be picked up by a local yakuza gang, but "Porno Broker" Tatsuo Umemiya gets to get first (“look, a naked woman jumped off the plane, let's pick her up”). Umemiya then makes her work in his Turkish bath, which she doesn't mind at all. In fact, she does eight men on her first night and still wants more. Unfortunately poor Umemiya has trouble “getting it up”... or to be more precise, it always gets up at the wrong moment (usually when some is trying to kill him) so she mainly ends up shagging other guys.

It’s a pretty ridiculous film with hippies, yakuza, lots of sex, silly comedy, Kelly, and a bit of action at the end. The best supporting character is an English speaking hippie dad taking care of a baby and having sex (at the same time) with Harumi Tajima (the girl with big boobs who appears in the poster for the final Sukeban film, and has roles in a few other pinky violence films as well).

Not bad for what it is: I found myself somewhat entertained most of the time even though I’m not a fan of (soft) porno comedies. What’s also nice is that we have the cast speaking in their own tongues: no dubbing here. Kelly speaks English, and a few sentences of (understandable) Japanese here and there, the rest of the cast speaks Japanese and a few sentences of (understandable, again) English here and there.

The film is a fun curiosity, but don’t kill yourself if you never get to see it.

Here are some stills

As a very pleasant surprise, Sharon Kelly had sent a new video greeting to the Japanese audiences, which was played before the film. She shared some memories about working on the film, such as having no idea what was going on half of the time. She recalled how in one scene they gave her a machine gun but she didn’t really know who she was to be shooting at. She also remembered the costumes, some of which were utterly ridiculous (as you can see in the poster). She also said she got along well with director Yamaguchi, whom she found much hotter with his cool 70s look and sunglasses than her co-star Tatsuo Umemiya.

[Umemiya, of course, had a very different opinion about his charm. Apparently he claimed in an interview back in 1974 that Kelly was so under his spell that they had real sex in the film. Almost certainly not true!]

[Oh, and Kelly was no stranger to Japanese audiences prior to the film's release. Her American films Teenage Bride (1970), A Scream in the Streets (1973), and The Dirty Mind of Young Sally (1973) had been released theatrically in Japan in 1973-1974, and the Japanese late night TV program "11 PM" had been covering her several times].

And here's some unrelated program playing in Laputa

Oh, and I also visited Meguro Cinema to see Mad Max: Fury Road again. Fury Road had a successful mainstream release last summer, but has become a real cult hit since then, playing in almost every indie cinema who are organizing cosplay events, double screenings with older Mad Max movies, and other program around the film. Meguro Cinema had "Thunder Screenings" where the volume had been cranked up. All the theatre staff was also dressed as the film's characters.

HungFist wrote:What’s also nice is that we have the cast speaking in their own tongues: no dubbing here. Kelly speaks English, and a few sentences of (understandable) Japanese here and there, the rest of the cast speaks Japanese and a few sentences of (understandable, again) English here and there.

That sounds good. When I watched Harry and the Geisha Girl 生贄の女たち (1978), another Toei sofcore porn comedy featuring an American actor (Harry Reems in this case), they actually replaced his real voice with some guy trying to speak English through a very thick Japanese accent. And they subtitled that in Japanese. Just bizarre! No matter how bad Reems' acting may have been, it couldn't have been worse than what they ended up using... unless they did it for added comedic effect and the "entertainment value" was just lost on me.

I find it fascinating that Toei was able to bring actors and actresses like Christina Lindberg (SEX AND FURY), Sandra Julien (TOKUGAWA SEX BAN), Harry Reems (HARRY AND THE GEISHA GIRL) and Sharon Kelly (OH WONDERFUL UTAMARO) over to Japan and put them in their movies. Am I missing anyone else they imported?

Guro Taku wrote:I find it fascinating that Toei was able to bring actors and actresses like Christina Lindberg (SEX AND FURY), Sandra Julien (TOKUGAWA SEX BAN), Harry Reems (HARRY AND THE GEISHA GIRL) and Sharon Kelly (OH WONDERFUL UTAMARO) over to Japan and put them in their movies. Am I missing anyone else they imported?

I was thinking about that too. I don't think you missed anyone.

On a semi-related note, Nikkatsu had Sally May, who was Japanese (daughter of American father and Japanese mother) but had 100% Western looks. She was in the three Rashamen Oman yakuza / roman porno films.

I just had the real life Abashiri Prison yakuza film experience on my way home. Try to imagine the scene:

It's a winter afternoon in Hokkaido. Cold, snow everywhere, and the train travels between a long line of mountains (on the right) and a freezing semi-story sea (on the left). I'm sitting in the train when an old man, maybe in his late 70s, boards the train. He's wearing a thick coat and a huge winter hat, and he looks just like Kanjuro Arashi (the "Devil Tiger") in the Abashiri Prison series. He sits down, looks at the sea through the window, and start singing in quiet, low and broken voice something that sounded like theme song from a 1960s Toei yakuza film. He kept singing all the way for about 25 minutes.

That was cool as fuck.

I imagined his story. Born in the late 1930, joined yakuza since he was a kid. Had some trouble with law numerous times and finally went to prison in his late 20s in 1967 for killing his wife and her lover. He was sentenced for 18 years, but got out after 15 (in 1982) for good behaviour. He came back to his gang, but in 1989 at the age of 51 he started his own gang. He had become an honourable yakuza who took care of young men who had been in trouble with the law. They were running a gambling business in a small fisherman town. In the mid 90s a dishonourable gang led by a man who looked like Bin Amatsu came to the town and started exploiting innocent people. It went on until he couldn't stand it anymore, and he went and stabbed the villain to death on October 3rd 1996. He got 19 years this time, and was released from Abashiri Prison today.

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse was a bit like a dress rehearsal for Wolfguy (1975), only different genre and a bit less outrageous. Nikkatsu actress Naomi Tani is the star of the first third, playing a poor wife tricked by evil husband Hideo Murota to work in a brothel. She's eventually killed by Murota and his lover, but her spirit returns to haunt them, first as a cat, and then as a white faced creature that looks like a runway cast member from a CATS musical. Boobs, violence, supernatural horror that isn't scary in the least, ultra-funky score, occasional apocalyptic sunsets, and bloody cat attacks (where the evidently bored and not-aggressive-at-all cat is being thrown through the air by the staff). It's a fun film and never boring, but the climax isn't quite as far-out as one would wish, especially when compared to the amazing Wolfguy. Consider it Yamaguchi's House-lite, Toei Porno style.

I scanned a few still photos from Sugisaku's pinky violence book. Quality is poor, though, and they make the film look more violent than it really is. Anyway.

A few pictures from the Noboru Tanaka retro in Cinema Vera. Unfortunately some of the most beautiful posters had already been taken down by the time I got there as those films were not playing anymore.

I was happy to see strong attendance in the screenings, especially on Thursday which was a national holiday. I counted about a dozen females in the Abe Sada screening, including two pretty girls sitting in front of me. Most of them seemed to have come alone or with a female friend.

Village of Doom & Monster Woman '88

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture & A Woman Called Sada Abe

Midnight Fairy

Amorous Family: Like a Fox and a Racoon

Noboru Ando's Account of Filthy Escape into Sex

Female Teacher

I wrote mini-reviews of some of the films I saw.

Amorous Family: Like a Fox and a Racoon (Japan, 1972) [DCP] - 1/5It is odd that Noboru Tanaka, one of the most talented arthouse directors who worked in the Roman Porno series, is also responsible for possibly the most nerve shattering idiot comedy the genre ever produced. It's about a family who are all after the dead-sick grandmother's hidden family jewels. Leading girl Mari Tanaka aside, the characters are all amazingly irritating cartoon caricatures constantly goofing around and making the viewer feel suicidal. This is the first time in 10 years that I've slept in cinema, and it was entirely intentional as I just couldn't take it anymore. Terrible, absolutely terrible.

Midnight Fairy (Japan, 1973) [DCP] - 4/5A desperate young man ditched by his girlfriend hooks up with a mentally challenged prostitute. Together they set out for a journey that includes kidnapping, raping and kissing goodbye for the rules of the society. This is a superb, overlooked arthouse Roman Porno by Noboru Tanaka. Tanaka lets his camera wander on the streets, beautifully capturing the early 1970s locations and atmosphere. He also creates fantastic, carefully staged images such as baby on a bar desk. It's pretty poignant too: Tanaka seems to suggest that in a civilized society the only innocent person is a retarded prostitute who is too dumb to lie, cheat, and use violence. The film never feels pretentious, though; rather the contrary. It's fun, playful and relatively fast paced. On the minus side the continuity and logic don't always hold water, though Tanaka and supporting actor Nobutaka Masutomi seem to acknowledge this sometimes makes fun of it.

Noboru Ando's Account of Filthy Escape into Sex (Japan, 1976) [35mm] - 3/5The recently deceased gangster film star Noboru Ando was the real deal: a former yakuza leader who was sent to prison after his man nearly killed a blackmail victim on his order. After his release, Ando became an actor, starring in several fictional movies as well as films based on his own life. The accuracy of these films is probably best demonstrated by the fact that Ando sometimes dies at the end of the story. This film, directed for Toei by Nikkatsu import Noboru Tanaka, shows Ando's fugitive days before his capture. According the Chris D, his sexual exploits were exaggerated "just a wee bit" and that's easy to believe. Here Ando spends his time hiding from the police by taking turns banging his 3 girlfriends and several one night (or one afternoon in front of the pool) stands. It's moderately fun and sleazy, and Ando has his dangerous charm, but one wishes there would be more violence and crime film imagery. The ending is quite a delighting "fuck you" to the police, though.

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture (Japan, 1977) [35mm] - 4/5Leave it to Noboru Tanaka to deliver the most intelligent SM film found in the Roman Porno genre. The final and best film in Tanaka's Showa Mad Love trilogy, it's a true account of a writer/artist with an obsession on the beauty of female torture. After his own wife has been consumed by the physical stress, he hooks up with a bar girl (Junko Miyashita) who, likewise, goes thru an enormous amount of physical stress until her mind and body give up. Tanaka is more interested in the mental aspect of an SM relationship, and its consequences on both body and mind, than exploitation. The usual villain-victim angle is completely ignored. He creates an interesting character drama with several haunting scenes, using silence especially well, and some impressive images in the brutal winter nature where most of the SM scenes are set. Newcomers be warned, though, it's still a rough film and the line between misogynist exploitation and character drama may not always be so clear.

Village of Doom (Japan, 1983) [35mm] - 3.5/5As a truly odd move, Roman Porno director Noboru Tanaka went to "family film studio" Shochiku for a movie that is not only full of sex, but also so violent it would've been considered a prime example of a video nasty had it been released in the UK back in the days. It's a film that belongs to a genre I like very much: the "something odd going on in a small village" movies. The film follows a young man, unfit for army, who is left practically alone with all the women after the other men are sent to war. He ends up getting seduced by the horny housewives, then dumped by everyone when their husbands return. He eventually goes crazy and conducts an amazingly bloody massacre, the kind that hasn't been seen in Japanese cinema since then until Miike's Lesson of Evil. A fascinating movie, and very bleak. Potentially harmful for mental health. And based on true story. Co-star Misako Tanaka is very cute, btw, and gets naked.

Monster Woman '88 (Japan, 1988) [35mm] - 2.5/5Noboru Tanaka's final movie is a trendy fantasy / mystery / love story with video game programmers as main characters! A dead woman begins communicating with a young video game programmer via his computer. What's going on? This is one of those movies that keep your interest from beginning to end without ever being especially good. It's strictly a mainstream affair without any exploitation, but the programmer angle is pretty cool indeed. There's also an amusing otaku love story side plot with the guys hiring a pretty girl with big boobs to help them beat the coding deadline, despite her complete lack of programming skills.

My return flight did not go quite as planned. My flight got cancelled due to bad weather and I was left in Tokyo without accommodation. So what does Hung figure out? "There's a clown movie all nighter in Shin Bungeiza. Problem solved!" I stayed there from 23:00 until around 4am and then went to wait for the first train... which broke down after 15 minutes. Somehow I still managed to get to the airport by 5:45 and miraculously managed to board the 6:05 flight.

Of course it was just my luck that the films played were in German, Japanese and Spanish (and no, my Japanese subtitle reading skills still aren't up to much), and the only English language film played after I had left. But there was positive irony to the one Japanese film being Tanaka's Watcher in the Attic, which I missed at the retro because it screened before I landed in Tokyo. The last time I had seen the film was on Finnish TV about 7 year ago.

HungFist wrote:Village of Doom (Japan, 1983) [35mm] - 3.5/5As a truly odd move, Roman Porno director Noboru Tanaka went to "family film studio" Shochiku for a movie that is not only full of sex, but also so violent it would've been considered a prime example of a video nasty had it been released in the UK back in the days. It's a film that belongs to a genre I like very much: the "something odd going on in a small village" movies. The film follows a young man, unfit for army, who is left practically alone with all the women after the other men are sent to war. He ends up getting seduced by the horny housewives, then dumped by everyone when their husbands return. He eventually goes crazy and conducts an amazingly bloody massacre, the kind that hasn't been seen in Japanese cinema since then until Miike's Lesson of Evil. A fascinating movie, and very bleak. Potentially harmful for mental health. And based on true story. Co-star Misako Tanaka is very cute, btw, and gets naked.

I like this illustration by manga artist Kazuichi Hanawa (inspired by the real life incident, not Tanaka's film, obviously):

HungFist wrote:Of course it was just my luck that the films played were in German, Japanese and Spanish (and no, my Japanese subtitle reading skills still aren't up to much), and the only English language film played after I had left.

What was the German clown flick? I can't figure it out from the visible posters.

HungFist wrote:But there was positive irony to the one Japanese film being Tanaka's Watcher in the Attic, which I missed at the retro because it screened before I landed in Tokyo.

I'm actually not the biggest fan of Tanaka's Watcher in the Attic. It adapts more than just the titular Rampo story and ends up a bit of a mess in my opinion. Akio Jissoji's 1994 version is more faithful and better for it.

HungFist wrote:Of course it was just my luck that the films played were in German, Japanese and Spanish (and no, my Japanese subtitle reading skills still aren't up to much), and the only English language film played after I had left.

What was the German clown flick? I can't figure it out from the visible posters.

Who Am I - Kein System ist sicher (2014). Not much clown in it, though.

HungFist wrote:But there was positive irony to the one Japanese film being Tanaka's Watcher in the Attic, which I missed at the retro because it screened before I landed in Tokyo.

I'm actually not the biggest fan of Tanaka's Watcher in the Attic. It adapts more than just the titular Rampo story and ends up a bit of a mess in my opinion. Akio Jissoji's 1994 version is more faithful and better for it.

I think it's good but not among Tanaka's best films. I'm not familiar with Jissoji's version or the original story

HungFist wrote:I was thinking about that too. I don't think you missed anyone.

On a semi-related note, Nikkatsu had Sally May, who was Japanese (daughter of American father and Japanese mother) but had 100% Western looks. She was in the three Rashamen Oman yakuza / roman porno films.

I may have found someone else but I can't figure out who she actually is and if she's an "import" or another Sally May type! Fact is, someone called サラ・バーネット starred in Nobuaki Shirai's 1973 film 外人妻 (Gaijin tsuma/Foreign Wife). That seems to be her only credit...

HungFist wrote:I was thinking about that too. I don't think you missed anyone.

On a semi-related note, Nikkatsu had Sally May, who was Japanese (daughter of American father and Japanese mother) but had 100% Western looks. She was in the three Rashamen Oman yakuza / roman porno films.

I may have found someone else but I can't figure out who she actually is and if she's an "import" or another Sally May type! Fact is, someone called サラ・バーネット starred in Nobuaki Shirai's 1973 film 外人妻 (Gaijin tsuma/Foreign Wife). That seems to be her only credit...

I guess that would be "Sara Burnett" in romaji. And yeah, I can't find anything about her either.

Yeah, Sukeban and Terrifying Girls' High School films are missing. I think it's because they screen relatively often in other retrospectives. I remember Laputa Asagaya has had both Sukeban and Terrifying Girls' High School retros almost a decade ago, Shin Bungeiza ran a Suzuki retro two years ago, Cinema Vera has had a pinky violence retro about 4 years ago, and the stars and some of the supporting stars are strong candidates for their own retrospectives as well. And Cinema Vera will run a Ichiro Araki retro in October... no program announced yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if one Sukeban film was included.

I'm sure they will have new posters on display later when films like Killing Machine screen. Unfortunately I could stay only for a few days. I caught School of the Holy Beast, Star of David, Red Peony Gambler 2, Roaring Fire, The Great Chase, and Shogun's Ninja. All 35mm. So much fun!

There was another Norifumi Suzuki retrospective in Shin Bungeiza about two years ago. I don't think I have posted pictures before.

Outside the theatre

Lobby. Posters for other program

Suzuki Retro program + mini posters on the left. 28 films in total.

They screened 9 of the 10 Truck Yaro films. One was excluded because there was no decent 35mm print available

Dolls of the Shogun's Harem + Ninja's Mark

Onsen geisha films

I saw the two Onsen Geisha films, which are fun but forgettable time wasters (and feature underage Reiko Ike!), Dolls of Shogun's Harem, which was amazing to see on large screen, and Ninja's Mark, which is a pretty cool ninja exploitation film.

I also visited Shin Bungeiza's all night screening the other week. Their all nighters are a real mixed bag. Sometimes you get BD screenings, even DVD, and sometimes you get all night of 35mm greatness. This time it was J Taro Sugisaku's "Film School" Vol. 2.

That's what I call a quality program. Four interesting films, none of which are available on dvd in Japan (Trail of Blood has a R1 dvd release, though, and Girl's Pleasure is available for streaming in Japan; the other two are impossibly difficult to see), and all on 35mm!

Only Trail of Blood of Blood was screened from the Mikogami trilogy, but they'd put up posters for the whole trilogy + 1 additional film

Minato no Yoko, Yohohama, Yokosuka and Girl's Pleasure: Man Hunting

Minato no Yoko, Yohohama, Yokosuka

From the right: Hayato Tani, J Taro Sugisaku, a guy whose name I forgot

Shin Bungeiza's 10m screen is totally awesome.

Minato no Yoko, Yohohama, Yokosuka was a real discovery. A crazy disco dance youth film plays out like a Japanese Saturday Night Fever with a murder suspect plot. Expect psychedelic clubs, dance till you drop dead all night dance marathon competitions and Downtown Boogie Woogie Band whose song gave the film its title and who appear in the super cool intro scene.

Girl's Pleasure: Man Hunting I have already discussed elsewhere, Rugby Yaro will be reviewed in the Chiba thread in the future, and Trail of Blood probably doesn't need further introductions (I'll probably post a mini-review somewhere later anyway).

So, yeah, that was an awesome nigh. I managed to get back to my capsule hotel by 7 am, sleep till 13:30, then head to Cinema Vera and Laputa Asagaya for three more movies. Learn from the pro, kids!

No wonder I got such a good match. That's the same fucking beach! I just realized today

Sunayama beach, Miyakojima, and island 300km from Naha.

And because I'm a perfectionist, I also visited the other shooting locations (I just didn't know it)

Maehama Beach:

And East Henna Cape:

My photo is taken from the tower, which you see behind the girls.

I always loved the ad campaign for Love & Pop, which depicts events that take place after the end of the film. The footage only exists in trailers, music video, and stills. But I never knew nor realized where it was shot until today.

This isn't the first time I'm replicating movie shots by accident. In 2006, after my first visit to Japan, I was watching Lost in Translation on TV and realized that, while in a bullet train travelling about 300km/h, I had taken a photo of the same damn building that Scarlett Johanson sees when she looks out for a about 2 seconds during her Kyoto trip.